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High rates of nonmarital fertility and divorce mean that many fathers do not live with some or all of their children. Using the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, this research compares socioeconomic and family characteristics among men with only coresidential children (n = 762), with both coresidential and nonresidential children (n = 107), and with only nonresidential children (n = 367) and examines the factors that influence men's visitation with nonresidential children. Men with only nonresidential children are more disadvantaged than men with both coresidential and nonresidential children, who in turn are more disadvantaged than men with only coresidential children. Although competing obligations to coresidential children affect visitation with nonresidential children, other factors are also important. In particular, the number of both coresidential sons and daughters negatively affects visitation. Men visit nonresidential children more frequently when they were married or cohabiting at birth, and visitation is negatively related to the age of nonresidential children. Keywords: nonresidential fathers; visitation

Mechanisms that enable declining networks to avert structural collapse and performance degradation are not well understood. This knowledge gap reflects a shortage of data on declining networks and an emphasis on models of network growth. Analyzing >700,000 transactions between firms in the New York garment industry over 19 years, we tracked this network's decline and measured how its topology and global performance evolved. We find that favoring asymmetric (disassortative) links is key to preserving the topology and functionality of the declining network. Based on our findings, we tested a model of network decline that combines an asymmetric disassembly process for contraction with a preferential attachment process for regrowth. Our simulation results indicate that the model can explain robustness under decline even if the total population of nodes contracts by more than an order of magnitude, in line with our observations for the empirical network. These findings suggest that disassembly mechanisms are not simply assembly mechanisms in reverse and that our model is relevant to understanding the process of decline and collapse in a broad range of biological, technological, and financial networks. complex networks | contraction | socioeconomic systems

Nigerian State that receives its oil from the Niger Delta and the Niger Delta region that is underdeveloped and has poor inhabitants that are among the poorest in Nigeria is discussed. The role of the Consolidated Council on Social and Economic Development of Coastal States of the Niger Delta that is a new development institution that was established by the Government of Nigeria to develop the Niger Delta region and its work is addressed.

Perspectives on gender and identity that emphasize variability of performance, local context and individual agency have displaced earlier paradigms. These are now perceived to have supported gender stereotypes and language ideologies by emphasizing gender difference and homogeneity within genders. In a secondary analysis of health and illness narratives we explore the interaction of class and gender in individuals' constructions of gendered identity. High social class men perform gender in particularly varied ways and we speculate that this variable repertoire, including the use of what was once termed 'women's language', is linked to a capacity to maintain social distinction and authority. Men's performance of conventional masculinity is often threatened by both the experience of illness and being interviewed about personal experience. Lower social class women in particular demonstrate an intensification of a pre-existing informal family and support group culture, marking successful members by awarding them the accolade of being 'lovely'. KEY WORDS gender / illness narratives / social class / sociolinguistics

The article examines the causes of the rise and fall of Iranian classes after the 1979 revolution. The revolution caused an upheaval of the Iranian economy, which witnessed the take over of urban lands by the peasants and the move by the capitalists to dispose property and invest the proceeds.

Participants (80 men, 80 women) read hypothetical date rape scenarios, wherein the perpetrator's socioeconomic status (bus driver versus doctor) and the victim's level of resistance (verbal versus verbal and physical) were varied, and made judgments about who was at fault and what the consequences should be. In general, men assigned more blame to the victim and less blame to the perpetrator than did women. However, men assigned more blame to the bus driver than to the doctor. Women, on the other hand, assigned more blame to the victim who was raped by the bus driver than to the victim who was raped by the doctor. The results also indicated that participants recommended harsher punishments for the perpetrator when the victim resisted verbally than when she resisted verbally and physically. Future research on the role of the perpetrator's, the victim's, and the participants' socioeconomic status in judgments about date rape is suggested. Keywords: occupation; verbal resistance; physical resistance; sexual coercion

An analysis of selected indicators of school performance in Portugal showed that the probability of having bad results is higher if individuals are of low socio-economic status and have an immigrant background.

In this article, we return to Max Weber's distinction between class and status as related but different forms of social stratification. We argue that this distinction is not only conceptually cogent, but empirically important as well. Indeed, class and status do have distinct explanatory power when it comes to studying varying areas of social life. Consistent with Weber's assertions, we show that economic security and prospects are stratified more by class than by status, while the opposite is true for outcomes in the domain of cultural consumption. Within politics, class rather than status predicts Conservative versus Labour Party voting in British general elections and also Left-Right political attitudes. But it is status rather than class that predicts Libertarian-Authoritarian attitudes.

The power of the electoral system in independently determining women's representation is explained. It is seen that given a state's culture and socio-economic conditions, multi-member proportional representation using a preferential or single transferable vote (STV) electoral system discriminates less against women and improves representation in national legislatures.

Colombian emigration to the Kingdom of Sweden is studied and the composition of the Colombian resident colony in Goteborg is analyzed. Their socioeconomic and labor characteristics as well as on their processes of integration into Swedish society during the past many years are focused.

The article advances a case for greater consideration of the moral aspects of the experience of class, and the concerns that people have regarding their class position and how others view them. First it outlines an approach to understanding lay normativity, especially morality, in which moral sentiments are viewed as evaluative judgements on how behaviour affects well-being. Drawing upon concepts from moral philosophy and examples of moral boundary drawing and shame, it argues that lay morality is weakly differentiated and assumes a universalizing character. Secondly it considers the close relations between economic distribution and recognition, arguing that it is necessary to distinguish between conditional and unconditional recognition, and internal and external goods in order to understand the struggles of the social field. Class inequalities render equality of conditional recognition impossible, because they prevent equal access to practices and goods worthy of recognition. KEY WORDS class / emotions / moral worth / recognition

Objectives. This study examines the main and interactive effects of age and socioeconomic status (SES) on social networks. Methods. Respondents are drawn from a regional stratified probability sample aged 40 to 93 years. Hierarchical regression analysis estimates the influence of age and SES on dimensions of social networks, controlling for marital status and health among men and women. Results. Among men, older age was associated with older networks. Professional men report networks that are less geographically proximal, however, occupational effects are most obvious in late life. Among women, age is associated with smaller networks that are older, less geographically proximal, and less frequently contacted. Whereas less education is associated with younger network members in midlife, among women in later life, lower levels of education are not associated with a younger network. Professional women report older networks composed of a higher proportion of friends than do homemakers. Higher levels of education are linked to larger personal networks among men and women, but not to the number of individuals considered closest. Among women, higher levels of education are also associated with less proximal networks. Discussion. An examination of within-group variability reveals influences of age and SES on personal networks among men and women.

Studies done to test whether socioeconomic status (SES) and chaos in the home mediate the shared environmental variance associated with cognitive functioning at the same time estimating genetic influences in a twin design is reported. Findings illustrate that SES and chaos partially mediate the shared environmental effects on verbal and nonverbal cognitive ability for young children, even after controlling for genetic differences in cognitive ability.

The institutions at the top levels of Australian business and society have become more specialized, diffuse and far flung. The various kinds of radical reconfiguration of connections, trust and solidarity between elite groups are suggested.

The micro-analytical strategies of identity formation among individuals attempting to transfer their ascribed social-class position into an achieved social-class position are examined. The results suggest that social transformation is difficult.

Menarcheal age of a sample of Portuguese university students, born between 1972 and 1983, age 18-23 years, is analyzed. The influence of parents' educational level and occupation, family size, birth order, and degree of urbanization of girl's locality of residence during childhood and adolescence as well a secular trend in the Portuguese population is analyzed.

Between 1948 and 1970, Israeli society witnessed a proliferation of discourses on juvenile delinquency, adopting a critical historically informed approach. This paper shows that debates on juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice, as well as the inclusionary or exclusionary policies they promoted, were grounded within the project of nation building and interwoven in broader attempts to reshape the social and moral order of the new society. Reflecting an emerging conception of a 'normal insider' citizen, a norm against which all individuals were measured, the discourse on juvenile delinquency created a hierarchy of 'others.' Middle-class juvenile delinquents were seen, in spite of their criminal acts, as deserving members of the new community. Delinquency in Orientals was attributed to their lack of readiness to participate in the socio-cultural milieu, something to be treated by resocialization. Arab delinquents were considered aliens and received limited services and treatment. Discourse analysis techniques indicate that this structuring of delinquent groups by class, ethnicity and nationality was part of a broader definition of the ideal moral traits of the Israeli citizen.

The growth in the black middle class since the Civil Rights movement has spawned an interest in the relationships between the black middle class and the black poor. Scholars are interested in understanding how social and cultural capital among the black middle class both ameliorate and/or sustain the conditions of the black working poor. While this literature provides us with an understanding about the role of social and cultural capital in the lives of poor and middle class blacks, it says little about how ideology functions in intra-racial multi-class coalitions. Through materialist and culturalist frames of community problems confronting the black working poor, I argue that culturalist frames of community problems fail to address black working class issues. Drawing on a case study of a community's effort to use Afrocentric ideology to improve an urban school I demonstrate how black middle class community members misdiagnosed the problem at the school through culturalist framing. Findings indicate that social class plays a significant role in how problems are defined, interpreted and addressed.

In this study we consider both a gender model, a model that focuses on the stress associated with social roles and conditions in the home environment, and a job model, which addresses the stressful characteristics of the work environment, to investigate patterns of women's and men's psychological morbidity across different social positions. Using data from the Whitehall II Study, a longitudinal study of British civil servants, we hypothesise that a lack of control in the home and work environments affects depression and anxiety differently for women and men and across three social class groups. Both women and men with low control either at work or at home had an increased risk of developing depression and anxiety. We did not find an interaction between low control at home and work. We did, however, find that the risks associated with low control either at home or work were not evenly distributed across different social positions, measured by employment grade. Women in the lowest or middle employment grades who also reported low control at work or home were at most risk for depression and anxiety. Men in the middle grade with low work control were at risk for depression while those in the lowest grade were at risk for anxiety. Men in the middle and highest grades, however, were at greatest risk for both outcomes if they reported low control at home. We conclude that, in addition to social roles and characteristics of the work environment, future investigations of gender inequalities in health incorporate variables associated with control at home and social position. Keywords: Depression; Anxiety; health inequalities; Gender inequalities; control; Work; home

Biographical note: ALICE SULLIVAN holds a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at Nuffield College, Oxford. This article is based on work she carried out for part of her doctoral dissertation, 'Cultural Capital, Rational Choice and Educational Inequalities', completed in 2000. This work was funded by an ESRC studentship.

Biographical notes: MIKE SAVAGE is Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Manchester. His recent books include Class Analysis and Social Transformation (Open University Press, 2000) and (edited with Rosemary Crompton, Fiona Devine and John Scott) Renewing Class Analysis (Blackwell: Sociological Review Monographs, 2000). GAYNOR BAGNALL is a lecturer specialising in the sociology of consumption in the School of Education, Community and Social Sciences at Liverpool John Moores University in England. She has recently completed her doctorate, which examined the cultural production and consumption of heritage sites in the northwest of England. Current research focuses on issues of lifestyle, consumption, identity and social integration in the middle-class communities around Manchester. BRIAN LONGHURST is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for Social Research, University of Salford. His recent publications include Popular Music and Society (Polity, 1995), Audiences ( Sage, 1998, with Nick Abercrombie) and Introducing Cultural Studies (Prentice Hall Europe, 1999, with Elaine Baldwin, Scott McCracken, Miles Oghorn and Greg Smith).

Biographical notes: DIANE REAY is a senior lecturer in research methods in the School of Social Science and Public Policy, King's College London. She has published widely in the areas of gender, social class and ethnicity. Recent publications include Class Work: Mothers' Involvement in their Children's Schooling, University College Press (1998). MIRIAM E. DAVID is a Professor of Policy Studies in the Department of Education at Keele University. Recent publications include (edited with D. Woodward, Falmer, 1998), Negotiating the Glass Ceiling: Senior Women in the Academic World, and (with M. Arnot and G. Weiner, Polity, 1999), Closing the Gender Gap: Post War Education and Social Change. STEPHEN J. BALL is Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of London Institute of Education. He is an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences and editor of the Journal of Education Policy. He is author of several books on education policy, including Education Reform (1994). Markets, Choice and Equity(1995, with Sharon Gewirtz and Richard Bowe), and Choice, Pathways and Transitions Post 16(2000, with Mag Maguire and Sheila Macrae). He is also editor of the four volume Sociology of Education: Major Themes. His work has focused, in particular, on education markets and the theorisation of policy. JACQUELINE DAVIES is a researcher at City University. She has published on social policy issues of choice in education and public sector regulation. Currently working in health policy, she has undertaken research into choice in maternity care and professional development of nurses.

The author examines the social implications of business communications between blue and white collar workers. Topics include social status, communication techniques, and levels of literacy.

Issues of family values, community, and spirituality among the social elite are examined. Topics regarding communists' influence, government corruption, and common versions of social utopia are discussed.

The US is not ruled by a large 'overclass' or 'white patriarchy' but there is no evidence yet of feminist manifestations of power in American society. Marxist and populist ideas about the elite in the US espoused by intellectuals of a previous generation have gone obsolete., Arguments about the structure of power in the United States have a long history and range from Marxist and Marxist-influenced populist interpretations such as those of C. Wright Mills and [...]

We live in a nation confident of its wealth and proud of its power, yet convinced that this wealth cannot prevent, and this power cannot touch, a profound corrosion of [...]

A study by Valerie J, Martinez, R. Kenneth Goodwin, Frank R. Kermerer and Laura Perna is an important addition to the growing body of literature on school choice and the people who choose the schools they want their children to attend. The study particularly cites two different choice plans in San Antonion, TX. However, further study reveals that school choice actually worsens the gap between the different social classes in the US.

'Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are,' the French gourmand Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote in 1825. A few decades later, American tastemakers tweaked Brillat-Savarins [...]